


Please Don't Tell Me Otherwise

by ChromeEdwardian



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Crisis of Faith, F/M, Honeymoon, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-03 18:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13346937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChromeEdwardian/pseuds/ChromeEdwardian
Summary: Aurelia Lavellan is trying to enjoy her honeymoon, but hasn't yet come to terms with her loss of faith and heritage.





	Please Don't Tell Me Otherwise

_“Screaming the name/Of a foreigner's God/The purest expression of grief”_ Hozier, "Foreigner's God"

Neither Aurelia nor Cullen were adjusting very well to this new stage of their life. With the Inquisition now dissolved, Cullen was unmoored. With no armies to command, he spent his days pacing around the house, finding problems where there were none and trying to fix things that didn’t need it. Aurelia was also unmoored. Without the stress on her shoulders keeping her affixed to the ground, she wandered around the house without purpose. This was supposed to be their honeymoon, but more and more, Aurelia wondered if she hadn’t been wrong in devoting her life to this person. Those vows she’d made, after everything she’d been through and learned, what did they mean anymore?

The candle on Cullen’s shrine sputtered, drawing Aurelia’s attention to it. She put down the puzzle box she was working on and considered it for a moment. She looked around for Cullen, but her husband was outside with the dog. Aurelia stood and walked over, staring the statuette of Andraste in its carved eyes. A wave of loathing crashed over her all of a sudden. Quickly, and guiltily, she picked up the statuette and put it away in a drawer. Three years of being the herald for a god she didn’t believe in. With all due respect to Cullen, Aurelia didn’t want to be reminded of how much she’d lost in the process.

Years ago, Josephine had asked her if she missed Clan Lavellan. She had answered that she would go back as soon as everything was over, but that soon became out of the question. Married to a shem, she could never go home again. Realizing that everything the Dalish had built their way of life upon was wrong, she wouldn’t be able to live among them without constant reminders of their ignorance. Without her clan or her beliefs, who was she?

It was, of course, all Solas’s fault. He’d ruined _everything_. All that remained of her faith in the Creators was Fen’Harel, the god she feared and reviled, and the vallaslin that marked her a slave of June. Was this what he bloody wanted? Did he still see her and the Dalish as slaves he could free like he had in the past? Had he destroyed her understanding of the world just to appear when she was at her most vulnerable, hoping she would cling to him? Manipulated her into seeing him as the last shred of normalcy? Even if she were to shed her worship of the Creators, was she expected to bend a knee to Fen’Harel? To Solas? To a man she thought was her friend? The thought almost made her laugh. But if she were to be honest with herself, it had worked. When she had finally found Solas again, she felt something in her reaching out to him in desperation. Something had cried out to him to save her from her confusion.

That was supposed to be Cullen she sought out for strength. Aurelia moved away from the drawer and over to the window. Cullen was chasing the dog around, looking exhausted. Good--maybe when he was done he would come in, bathe, and doze in bed for a few hours and leave her alone. More and more, she wondered if they had anything in common that wasn’t related to the Inquisition. A love built on proximity wasn’t...really love, was it? Maybe it was. More questions.

That evening, Cullen and Aurelia walked over to town to have their dinner at their favorite tavern. It was early summer, and the grass was still soft beneath their feet. Aurelia had her arm around his waist while they chatted. It was easy, coming up with words to say to him, and she realized that maybe they were meant to be together, even if he did have a severe case of cabin fever. It was only her anguish bleeding out into other areas of her life. She loved this man, and that was the end of that.

When they arrived at the tavern, they sat down at a table and ordered, when Aurelia spoke up.

“Can we eat outside instead?”

Cullen looked surprised, but the look passed quickly. “Of course.”

They waited until their food was brought out to them, and then they went out. There was a small copse of trees not far from the tavern, and they sat on the grass with their food. Aurelia’s toes curled in her boots, wishing she could feel the soil under her toenails. Taking off her shoes would only draw attention to herself, and the last thing Aurelia ever wanted on her was the eyes of the masses.

“We haven’t eaten outside in some time,” Cullen said. “At least, you haven’t. You did it all the time at Skyhold.”

Aurelia swirled her spoon around in her bowl. “I just wanted to tonight.”

“Ah.” Cullen cleared his throat and began to eat.

She was completely cut off from her heritage, but it was a small comfort that she could still spend her time outdoors, in nature. If she didn’t feel any connection, she could at least pretend, could at least put herself in the right environment hoping something would touch her again.

“Maybe this was stupid,” she said.

“What was stupid?” he asked.

“Coming out here.” Aurelia looked at him, wondering if this was a good time to tell him. If he was her mooring as much as she insisted he was, she needed to tell him. The only thing to protect her from her thoughts was to share them. “I’d become so used to being in human dwellings, it almost feels odd being out here again.”

Cullen was quiet for a second. “Does it bother you? You’ve given up so much to get where you are now. I never stopped to think…” He rested his forehead on his knee.

Aurelia stroked his shoulder. “Sometimes,” she said softly.

When she looked out at the world, the Creators were no longer there breathing meaning into life, death, and all of it. All that remained was Chaos and the god who represented it. She spooned another bite of stew spitefully into her mouth. The last time she had seen Solas, there had been so little time to sort through her feelings. If she ever got the chance to speak with him again...well, she didn’t know entirely what she was do, but she needed to see him again, all the same. He needed to know what he had done.

“I think I finally understand how everyone else felt while the Inquisition was in power,” she said. “The Andrastians, I mean. Perhaps even you.”

Cullen finished his bowl and was chasing the dregs of gravy with his spoon. “Is that why my statue of Andraste is missing?”

Aurelia laughed, despite herself. “I’m sorry. Impulse. But yeah.”

“Would you rather talk about this at home?”

“Mmhmm.”

Cullen’s dog was stretched out in front of the fire, while Cullen himself sat in one of the chairs, taking off his boots. Aurelia stared into the flames, absently running her hand over the rounded end of her left arm. It still made her skin crawl, touching the scar tissue, but she was getting used to it.

“After we found Skyhold, Sera told me that she didn’t actually want proof of the Maker.,” Aurelia said.

Cullen looked over at her, brow knitted, waiting for the point.

“She didn’t want proof either way. I think maybe a lot of other people felt the same way. The Chant of Light had always been a good story, and here I was, acting like living proof of Andraste and that it wasn’t just a story. I must have scared so many people….”

“I’m sure you--”

“Did I scare you?”

He smiled. “Only in good ways.” The fire popped and spat. The dog rolled over on his back, and Cullen rubbed his foot along the dog’s belly.

“So now I know the Creators are really real. Only they weren’t who the Dalish thought they were. Those stories turned out to be real but so much worse…. I mean--the way I went on and on about how the Dalish were preserving the old ways in front of Solas. He must have thought I was a stupid child!”

Cullen scowled. “You were the Inquisitor. You led a nation. Not even _that man_ could think you were a child.” When she didn’t respond, he continued. “When I was a templar, I had plenty of opportunities to think about my relationship to the Maker. I don’t think we’re supposed to know Him for what he truly is. Or Andraste, for that matter. I think in matters of faith, we’re supposed to take the stories that we’ve been told and decide how that affects the way we live. And if it turns out that the Maker never existed, and that Andraste was nothing but a liar, my life has still been touched by the idea of Them. That’s real.”

Aurelia squeezed her eyes shut as tears started coming.

Cullen reached out to put his hand on her knee. “It doesn’t matter that the Creators weren’t who you thought they were. You and your people worshiped ideas that allowed you to grow and find happiness and reason in the world. You didn’t worship the mages Solas defeated, you worshiped your own gods under those same names. Those ideas can’t go away so easily. Nor should they.”

She looked over at him through blurred eyes. “My people…” She couldn’t finish.

“I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

A cricket sang out from right beneath the window amidst the white noise of the night. The mabari’s tail thumped rhythmically on the wooden floor. The shadows of bats fluttered over the fields. No one spoke for the rest of the night.


End file.
